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Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Quick Updates on 4.2

There are a couple of comments on yesterday's post that I want to address and I would like them to be more visible then your standard blog post comment. So they get their own post.

4.2 Wording Revised.

Teranin made a quick post to give us a heads up that the wording on the 4.2 balance patch notes changed. The are now listed as:

Insect Swarm now generates 8 Lunar Energy for Balance Druids.

Moonfire now generates 8 Solar Power for Balance Druids.

Sunfire now generates 8 Lunar Energy for Balance Druids.

In all three notes the "for druids with Eclipse" was changed to "for Balance Druids." I don't know if this is Blizzard changing their mind on how it works or making the intended change more clear, but it raises some new questions.

Will DoTs move Eclipse backwards? - I doubt it. My guess is that the DoTs will behave like Starfire and Wrath in that Moonfire will move the bar towards Solar only after a Lunar Eclipse, and Sunfire will only move the bar towards Lunar after a Solar Eclipse.

Will DoTs get double energy from Euphoria? - Again, I doubt it, but I would like to see it happen. It would be a small boost to DPS, and I think it would make sense since the DoT energy design will probably be very similar to the Starfire/Wrath energy design.

Will it have an impact on our favored rotation? - There's the situation I wonder about. What if your are eight or less energy away from a Solar Eclipse? Which spell is better to cast: Insect Swarm or Starfire?

Insect Swarm will proc Eclipse sooner and does so without wasting much if any energy, but it's not being buffed by Eclipse and doesn't proc Nature's Grace. Casting Starfire will delay the Eclipse proc by a second and waste a lot of energy, but it has a lower DpET then Insect Swarm and will benefit from the Eclipse less.

My gut says that Starfire is still the better option, and either way I doubt it will have a big impact. I'm mainly curious to know if I need to try and unlearn a habit of delaying a DoT if I am one cast away from procking Eclipse.

To Harsh on Lunar Shower

Erdluf made this post in the comments:

The Damage per Energy of LS3 DD is almost exactly the same (2% less on the WrathCalcs I'm looking at) as the DpE of Wrath.

Obviously that isn't the entire story. Not all MF casts will have LS3. Most MF casts will also give you an extra (eclipsed) tick. In some cases one more MF will cost you a full Wrath, and in some cases one more MF will not cost any Wraths.

I'm guessing that unless you are "saving" Eclipse for a burst event (in which case you stick to WM and heals or your off-nuke), you'll still want to strongly consider MF during any movement.

I hadn't done the math and now it's biting me in the but a little. Using Lunar Shower during Eclipse might not be quite as bad as I thought. I'm not getting the same less then 2% difference that he indicated, but when I considered an extra DoT tick in addition to the DD damage the numbers Damage per Energy between MF Spam and Wrath were very similar. When I considered four or more MF casts MF had significantly more Damage per Energy. So, it's not as bad as my gut feeling, I still think it hurts some.

Yes, there's a possibility that a single MF cast wouldn't cause you to lose a Wrath, but, for LS to be worth while you have to cast multiple MFs. In which case you’re guaranteed to lose one Wrath, and likely two if you’re casting three MFs.

You also have to worry about pushing yourself out of Eclipse. Overwriting an Eclipsed DoT with a non-Eclipsed DoT is a big damage loss. Since we can't guarantee when movement will be required this will limit the usefulness of Lunar Shower.

The changing in wording is nice.. but it still doesn't make this change terrible. The only nice thing about boomkins now was our ability to compete on AOE fights, and our ability to control our Eclipses. I know that on certain fights, I min/max my eclipses to a TEE.. I agree that one some fights AOE dotting is overepowered, but I don't think adding energy to dots is a decent way to fix this. It will end up hurting us on single target fights as well.

Can't they just buff the direct damage portion of Moonfire so that our AOEs are similar either in Lunar or Solar?

I can see MF spam in PVP to force eclipse faster during noneclipse. Not that it fixes anything with a super slow Starfire usually getting interrupted. Ger rid of moonglow and replace with an useful PVP talent!

I wish they'd make it so dots generate lunar/solar when we're not in eclipse, instead of pushing us out of eclipse faster.

The movement problem still applies, since you might end up out of Eclipse if you keep casting MF buffed by Lunar Shower, and to clip a Eclipsed DoT is a dps loss.

And the overcomplication on AoE got even worst now. You should keep multi-doting, but you dont want to DoT out of Eclipse. So, you will dot while you have more than 8 Eclipse power, then you will keep using WM/Starfall/Typhoon/Hurricane.

Shit, Blizzard really loves to do the exact opposite what they say, since they said they wanted to get rid of overcomplicated rotations...

I'm a long time reader of your blog and I deeply respect all your work and thinking about moonkins, but I must be honest with you at this point.

Our ability to control our eclipses should be the only concern from the moonkin community at this very early point. Wasting time on theorycrafting is just a way to show we're more worried about numbers than in our gameplay and at the same time a lack of faith we can be actually heard.

I would be annoyed with a nerf but right now I'm just afraid of losing the will to play a class where the eclipse bar would be pretty much cosmetic, and no number compensation will pay off the awful change in gameplay.

I've been testing a bit the new mechanich and so far it looks like this:

- IS will move your Eclipse meter towards Lunar if you're already on that direction and with no Eclipse buff or at 0 Eclipse power.- MF will move your Eclipse meter towards Solar if you're already on that direction and with no Eclipse buff or at 0 Eclipse power.- Both IS and MF will move the Eclipse meter towards the opposite one while in any Eclipse.- Still, you'll get to cast both dots, one Starsurge and 5 Wrath/4 Starfire per Eclipse.

Haven't seen any significant effect of Euphoria on dots though, but I haven't done a comprehensive testing either.

Unsure wether they in fact mean that the dots only give energy when in the eclipse, or if it also counts for when out of eclipse. If it counts all the time, then why would they make the new balance T12 4set generate 3 additional Lunar Energy and Starfire generate 5 additional Solar Energy?

The changes blizz are making is messy, and I can honestly say that this is uncalled for. We're not the only class/spec topping AoE anymore, and our static single target isn't exactly something to yell hooray for either.

With this change, they take away such a big part of the managing and calculating our eclipses, wich is the thing i dislike most of all.

On a good note though, the 2set with a burning treant fighting along our side sounds epic!